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Character Bios

Balin

Description:
Instead there was a very old-looking dwarf on the step with a white beard and a scarlet hood; and he too hopped inside as soon as the door was open, just as if he had been invited.

'I see they have begun to arrive already,' he said when he caught sight of Dwalin's green hood hanging up. He hung his red one next to it, and 'Balin at your service!' he said with his hand on his breast. ...

When he [Bilbo] got back Balin and Dwalin were talking at the table like old friends (as a matter of fact they were brothers). ...

Dwalin and Balin said: 'Excuse me, I left mine in the porch!' ... They came back with viols as big as themselves....

The Hobbit, Ch 1, An Unexpected Party

Balin, who was always their look-out man, said: 'There's a light over there!'

The Hobbit, Ch 2, Roast Mutton

Ashes and cinders were in the eyes of the dwarves, and the wood was filled again with their clamour and their cries. Bilbo found himself running round ... and calling: 'Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Fili, Kili, Bombur, Bifur, Bofur, Dwalin, Balin, Thorin Oakenshield,'....

Then Balin, who had grasped Bilbo's plan better than the rest, led an attack. The dwarves huddled together in a knot, and sending a shower of stones they drove at the spiders on the left, and burst through the ring.

The Hobbit, Ch 8, Flies and Spiders

'What have we done, O king?' said Balin, who was the eldest left [after Thorin Oakenshield].

The Hobbit, Ch 9, Barrels Out of Bond

'There lies all that is left of Dale,' said Balin. 'The mountain's sides were green with woods and all the sheltered valley rich and pleasant in the days when the bells rang in that town.' He looked both sad and grim as he said this: he had been one of Thorin's companions on the day the Dragon came.

The Hobbit, Ch 11, On the Doorstep

From that the talk turned to the great hoard [of Smaug] itself and to the things that Thorin and Balin remembered. They wondered if they were still lying there unharmed in the hall below [the Lonely Mountain]....

The Hobbit, Ch 12, Inside Information

'I knew many among the ravens of the rocks when I was a dwarf-lad. This very height was once named Ravenhill, because there was a wise and famous pair, old Carc and his wife, that lived here above the guard-chamber.'

The Hobbit, Ch 15, The Gathering of Clouds

The light of the shaft fell directly on a table in the middle of the room: a single oblong block, about two feet high, upon which was laid a great slab of white stone. ... On the slab runes were deeply graven....

At length they stirred and looked up, and began to search for anything that would give them tidings of Balin's fate ...

'I fear [the Book of Mazarbul] had ill tidings to record ...' said Gandalf. 'The first clear word is sorrow, but the rest of the line is lost, unless it ends in estre. Yes, it must be yestre followed by day being the tenth of novembre Balin lord of Moria fell in Dimrill Dale. He went alone to look in Mirror mere. an orc shot him from behind a stone. we slew the orc, but many more ... up from east up the Silverlode. ... Poor Balin! He seems to have kept the title that he took for less than five years.'

The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 2, Ch 5, The Bridge of Khazad-dûm